Moving events and projects from machine to machine

Copying the contents of iMovie Events and iMovie Projects to another machine doesn't make them available -- at best, you get their title with no content. Has anyone figured out how to do this?

Copying the contents of iMovie Events and iMovie Projects to another machine doesn't make them available -- at best, you get their title with no content. Has anyone figured out how to do this?
Do not use the Finder to copy/move the "iMovie Events" folders. Instead, use one of the "Import" File menu options to create a new "Events" folder and assign it to a different hard drive. I suspect the project stores the locations of the various "Events" folders and manually moving them does not update the project's database. As to the "iMovie Projects" folder, don't think anyone has found an internal mechanism for moving them and it is likely they are subject to the same problem if moved manually.
However, once the "folders" are properly created/identified, their contents may possibly be moved without problem. Accidentally moved 2-3 "iMovie Projects" package files to the trash can and they disappeared from the iMovie '08 "listing" when I next opened it. Went searching for the missing files and when I located them, replaced them in the proper folders and the next time I opened iMovie '08 they re-appeared in the "Projects" list.

Similar Messages

  • Moving Events and Projects from one location to another on the same hard drive.

    Hello.
    I've searched in the FCP X User Manual, on this forum and in Google, but have found no explanation of how to do this, so I'm posting this here in hopes that someone in our community will be able to help.
    I've previously stored my FCP X Events and Projects folders on an external 3TB hard drive, because there is more room on it than on the internal 1TB hard drive, but, since then, I've worked with other media apps, for video, photography and audio, the files for which are also stored on the external hard drive, and this has created a bit of clutter with no folder structure to keep it tidy.
    I like an organised file structure on my system, to keep it uncluttered, easy to navigate and efficient to use, so I put all the files for my photography, video and audio apps into their own folders, which are, in turn, stored in their appropriate folders for Audio, Photography and Video, and those three folders are stored in a folder called Media, and then I directed each app to its own files.
    The only app with which this has been a problem is FCP X. While there is a way of relocating projects and events from within FCP X, it allows the user to move them from one hard drive to another, and not, as I want, from one place to another on the same hard drive.
    I'm not sure if it matters, but perhaps it's relevant to mention before the next paragraph that the files that had previously been imported as events are, to save hard-drive space, stored in the events folder as shortcuts to the original files, which are stored elsewhere on the drive, rather than as duplicates of those files.
    In Finder, I copied the Events and Projects folders to their intended new locations and tried in the app to link the events and projects to their new Finder location. It seemed to have worked, until I moved the original folders to the Trash. On re-opening FCP X, it was clear that the linking hadn't worked. I returned the original folders from the Trash to their original location, but that didn't entirely reverse the problem. I noticed also that, in the original and duplicated Events folders, the shortcuts had lost their links to the original files stored elswehere on the drive.
    Fortunately I had run a backup before starting, so I restored the original folders and the app from the backup, and all was back to normal.
    I'd be grateful if anyone could advise me on whether or not it's possible to move FCP X events and projects from one place to another on the same hard drive with the app's compliance.
    Thank you.

    Ludio wrote:
    I'd be grateful if anyone could advise me on whether or not it's possible to move FCP X events and projects from one place to another on the same hard drive with the app's compliance.
    I
    Message was edited by: Russ H Apparently mis-read the questions.

  • Can I import Events and Projects from previous versions of iMovie

    I just installed the latest version of iMovie - but I have a bunch of projects, events, etc. from previous version - going way back.  Is there a way to move those items into the new version.

    Yes.  File - Update Projects and Events.  Your iMovie 9 folders will still be available.  (I would not delete any iMovie 9 stuff untill you are happy with iMovie 10 - its quite different.)

  • Moving Events and archiving videos directly from Canon HF100 to External HD

    Hello,
    After purchasing my Macbook and my canon HF100 camcorder I got too carried away and excitedly imported too many videos to Imovie. When the Macbook had no more space to import new movies, without reading instructions ( NOW I KNOW... ALWAYS to read instructions first) I archived the videos directly onto an external HD ( 500 gb FAT 32 format).
    Now in order to free up some space I tried to move the existing events and projects from macbook to the same hard drive , but the HD icon has a yellow exclamation mark, which I now know means that it has to be formatted to MAC OS. and MAcbook will not allow moving of any events or projects to the hard drive..
    My problem as below:
    1- If I format my external HD now, it would loose all the previous data etc which I do not want. Since the directly archived videos are stored in FAT 32, does that mean they are now unusable for I Movie import? What should I do next in order to store the currently archived movies properly that Mac recognizes and reads the data correctly?
    2-I need to free up space on my macbook as soon as possible as the startup disk is totally full. I do not want to buy another external HD to move my data but i do already possess an I book external hard drive which is also Fat 32 format and has photos etc.. which I do not want to loose by formatting it.
    Can I copy all the files from my external HD ( where I archived the movies) to the I book ( where there are other movies and photos from windows computer) which is FAT 32 format and then format it to MAC OS and re transfer the archived movies back. Will Macbook recognize the files then?
    All the videos and photos are very precious to me and I do not want to lose them. Any help with my problem is highly appreciated. I wait eagerly for an answer. Many thanks in advance.

    Do I need to create a seperate folder for the RAW archived files which are yet to be processed by I >movie?
    In general, you want to be able to move it back exactly as it was, you can drag it over to the iBook, then drag it back. If it helps to put everything under one folder to do this, that is OK. When you move it back, make sure it looks like it looked before you moved it.
    Can the RAW files be transferred to a FAT 32 HD without formatting to MAC OS.. will this not >corrupt the data?
    Probably. I'm guessing you are using an 8GB SDHC card or similar with your Canon. If you put your card in a card reader on your Mac you should see it in the Finder (or you can connect your camera directly). If you see it in the Finder, do a right-click/Get Info. I would bet that your SDHC is formatted as FAT32. So if the original camera is Fat32, you know that FAT32 is fine for the archive.
    Here is why. FAT32 has an architectural limitation for file sizes. Files cannot be more than 4GB (minus one byte) - or 3.999999999 GB.
    The files on the camera are highly compressed AVCHD. Further, you would typically press record and stop several times while shooting, so no one clip is going to be bigger than 3.999999999GB. The only way you would exceed this is if you recorded a 2 hour event by pressing the record button once and letting it run without stopping. Even then, Canon probably has a workaround where they divide it up into 2 files that are each smaller than 3.999999999GB.
    So if the camera can accept FAT32, why can't iMovie? The reason is that on import, iMOvie converts the highly compressed AVCHD into full frames of Apple Intermediate Codec. The file size will typically increase by a factor of 8 to 10. So now it is quite possible to have a clip that exceeds the 4GB limitation. So iMovie does not allow FAT32 as a valid file structure.

  • Moving iMovie '09 events and projects onto an external hard drive

    I have moved my events and projects from my laptop to my external manually by going into the library and dragging them over (not being aware that it's possible to move them within iMovie 09). They appear in the event list, on the external, and behave just like the originals on my laptop. Are they complete files, even though they weren't moved in the approved method?
    I tried moving one additional file (not folder) from within iMovie, but it won't let me click and drag it to the external - it only highlights it, along with any other folder that gets in the way. Why is this happening?

    The event files you moved are fine. But by moving them outside of iMovie, you'll have broken any links to them from the Project files (which are just lists of references and instructions). You can recreate the projects using the new event files if you want.
    iMovie will only move to drives formatted as MacOS. Many drives come formatted as FAT32 by default (because it's a format readable on both Macs and Windows PCs. You can reformat the drive using Disk Utility (use the Mac Os Extended (Journaled) option, but that will erase any data on the drive. However, it will let you move files within iMovie, which is the safe way to do it.
    One major reason why iMovie won't let you use FAT32 is that FAT32 has a file size limitation (2GB, I think) - and video files are routinely way bigger than that. And just to preempt another possible question, you can't use NTFS format because Macs can't write to NTFS drives

  • Moved iMovie 09 project from one computer to another - now timing is wrong!

    Hello,
    I wanted to copy some Events and Projects from my Dad's older MacBook Pro to my iMac. So I just copied the event folders (from <Home Directory>/Movies/iMovie Events/) and the project files (from <Home Directory>/Movies/iMovie Projects/) to the corresponding folders on my iMac.
    I then opened up iMovie on my iMac and saw that the Events and Projects were there. So far, so good.
    The first problem I noticed was when I exported one of the projects from my iMac using QuickTime. The duration of the resulting .MOV file was about 30 seconds shorter than the duration of the project!
    I watched the Project in iMovie, and found that the clips in the Project were 'cut off'. For example, the clip in the Project would say it was 10 seconds long, but when you played the Project the clip was only 7 seconds long.
    How could this be? Is the speed of the Project somehow tied to the computer that created the project? i.e. perhaps the speed of the processor could impact this? I highly doubt it, as it would make it impossible to move projects from one computer to another.
    Bottom line - the identical Project file on my iMac (with the same underlying events) will produce a different exported movie file than the exact same Project file on my Dad's laptop. Specifically, my version will be shorter and the clips will be cut off.
    Any ideas would be greatly appreciated....

    The macrumours link just telss you how to move the events which is relatively straightforward.
    Alot of advice just seems to rest with leave the projects on your internal drive as they don't take up much space.
    However, http://karsten.schluter.googlepages.com/im08tricks has a description of how to move the projects and then 'fool' imovie into where the projects are stored.
    Not very flexible but it does allow you to 'clear' your macbook yet when you restore the sym-link file to the right place and restart imovie you can reconnect to all your old projects and events without yellow triangles of death appearing.
    By the by apple needs to sort this out as archiving old projects and events together and preserve the editing is a really basic requirment I think.
    PS anyone found out how to merge projects yet? Another basic function that seems to be lacking.

  • Transfer events and projects between computers

    How do I transfer iMovie '08 events and projects from one iMac to another iMac? I need to free up some disk space on the first iMac, and the second iMac has iMovie '09. I am using Time Capsule as a backup for both computers.

    Thanks -- I will try that shortly. A wrinkle that I neglected to mention is that the library on the MacBook Air has photos previous to the India trip that will be duplicates of some on the other computers' libraries (and in some cases they're early versions of photos that have been edited on the desktops). Is there a way to transfer less than the full library? Thanks.

  • G'day.  I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space.  How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

    G'day.  I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space.  How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

    The slightly bigger question is whether you want to move all movie content to the external drive (essentially meaning that drive will always need to be attached when you're working with your videos), or whether you just want to archive older videos off to the external drive.
    If you want to move all videos, then just move the 'Movies' folder in your home directory to the external drive, then create an alias of the external 'Movies' back in to your home directory. Now the 'Movies' icon in your home directory will point to the external drive and everything will just work (as long as the external drive is attached when you launch iMovie)
    If you want to archive older movies then each Movie should have its own subdirectory within your Movies folder. These can easily be moved off to the external drive, and moved back should you ever need to work on those movies again.

  • My external hard drive holding half my iMovie events and projects has crashed: how do I restore the events from another source?

    My external hard drive holding half my iMovie events and projects has become corrupted.  I have now downloaded all the same files (from a backup in the cloud) to another hard drive - but iMovie is not "seeing" those events or movies in that external hard drive.  Q1 Is there a way of rectifying that?  (I.e. telling iMovie to point to the relevant folders or files on the new external hard drive)
    Q2 I have a TimeMachine backup of the corrupted drive in another drive which i keep elsewhere.  Is it worth me attempting to restore from that backup? And if so where can I restore to (as the original external drive is corrupted) and how do i go about that restore process so that the events and projects re-appear?
    thanks in advance for your help.  (I thought i would check re Q2 before embarking on the wrong method!)

    When I right click on an image, then went to Go to Folder in Library, it pulls up the new external hard drive where I made the new link. When I try to work on the photos, the image still says file image is offline or missing. When I right click on the image to Show in Finder, it says the image could not be used because the original file could not be found. I eventually did click on their locate and found the image. When I linked those two together, a few minutes later ALL the "?" went missing and now IT WORKS!!!!
    That was weird!
    Hope this helps someone else in my predicament.

  • I moved my FCP events and projects folder onto my external hard drive and now everything is gone on FCP.  When I tried to reload those folders onto FCP nothing happened.  I still get the missing files image.

    I moved my FCP events and projects folder onto my external hard drive and now everything is gone on FCP.  When I tried to reload those folders onto FCP nothing happened.  I still get the missing files image.  When I try to import the folders manually something pops up that says it is incompatable.  It is possible to retrieve everything that was lost?

    "When I tried to reload those folders onto FCP nothing happened"
    Brownale6 how can  u reload folder in to FCP.
    As you said folders are moved to external disk but have you checked it should be like this
    For Event
    external disk>Final Cut Events>your event folder.  
    For project
    external disk>Final Cut Projects>your project folder.

  • Events and Projects not opening after Restoring from broken Hard drive.

    Hi all!
    I have a major problem. After almost 3 months editing 6 projects within the same library the hard drive died. These projects are for a very important client and are worth a lot of time and money. We always backup all the raw material on 3 hard drives so we do have all the raw material, however FCPX for some reason had stopped making backups of the projects after it was updated to 10.1.2.  (The loss of these projects could mean the downfall of my production company.) We had a professional data recovery company recover all the data to a new hard drive without any problem, we can see the libraries and open them, HOWEVER the events and projects within the libraries DO NOT OPEN OR SHOW UP.
    I have entered into the library in the finder and everything seems to be there, all the events files show up. But FCPX wont recognize them.
    Any help would be much appreciated,
    Thanks, Tom
    You can see here that everything is inside the library folder.
    But they don't show up in FCPX.
    P.S
    Also this file is showing up only after the data was restored.

    The journal files are something that've been generated by the data recovery. It's completely hosed the data base.
    I don't know if this will work. Try carefully removing all the journal files. Put them somewhere else in folders with the location where they came from. Also move out the currentversion.flexolibrary file. Hopefully without the flexolibrary file the application will generate a new one.  Then launch the application.
    WHy did you continue to operate when there were no backups, without even a hard drive backup?
    Wwhat version of the software are you using? 10.1.2?

  • HT4740 i already did the Hidding part and later moved the events and projects to the FCP events and projects folder . I still cannot share - keep getting this message "THE SHARE OPERATION 1080P FOR APPLE DEVICES (10 MBPS) HAS FAILED. Quicktime Error -50

    i already did the Hidding part and later moved the events and projects to the FCP events and projects folder . I still cannot share - keep getting this message "THE SHARE OPERATION 1080P FOR APPLE DEVICES (10 MBPS) HAS FAILED. Quicktime Error -50
    I dont know what else to do to be able to share my project - I know i updated FCPX before i shared this project  but i dont know what im doing wrong

    masterpieces wrote:
    later moved the events and projects to the FCP events and projects folder .
    Can you explain in detail what you did?
    Do any other shsre destinations complete? If not, do you get the same error message?

  • Backing up iMovie Events and Projects As Opposed to Moving Them

    Hi all. I'd like to make some backups of my iMovie events and projects. I read on the Apple site that the best way to do this is through iMovie itself and not the Finder. I should drag events to an external hard drive inside the iMovie window. When I do this, does it copy the event to the drive, or does it move it to the drive. I'd rather have a copy since I'm trying to make a backup. Also, how would I do this for projects to make a backup?
    2) If I already copied my Events and Projects folder to an external drive, would I be able to use these in the future? Would I just place them inside my Movies folder under user and launch iMovie. These just seems easier in the event that everything crashed. Am I missing something here? It seems like it would be easier just to copy these two folders everytime, and save them in case of a hard drive crash.
    Thanks.

    If you drag your Projects folder over to the external drive icon in the Project Library, a pop-up window will give you the option of just duplicating the Project or getting the Project + associated Events too. I suggest going with the copy of Projects + Events to get a real duplicate backup of your iMovie project. By default iMovie assumes you want a copy.
    If you want to move a Project/Events combo, you would hold down the ⌘ Command key and drag the project to the external drive icon in the Project Library.
    Any time you want a backup, just drag that project folder to the external drive icon, but just make sure you do it regularly. Otherwise you'll end up with an older incomplete previous version of the project because the backup is based on an action you have to remember to do.
    If you already dragged those folders over outside of iMovie, it's unlikely iMovie will be able to see or find those files. You would have to drag them back to the iMovies folders inside your Movies folder. So there's an extra step involved. And if you do that regularly, and don't mind dragging files back into the iMovies folders, that will work too. On the Mac, there's always more than one way to do things, so do what makes sense to you.

  • Events and project thumbnails missing after moving to new computer

    I just helped a friend to move to a new Mac. I have copied all her personal data to her new computer, so iMovie Events and Projects are present in her new Movie folder. However, after opening iMovie '08, all events and project thumbnails are missing. How could this be? Is there perhaps some library file that keeps track of all this that I need to copy as well? Is there a way to re-link iMovie with the events folder?

    Try this:
    First, make sure you've quit out of iMovie. Then go to your Movies Folder > iMovie Events > and then into the folder of the even that's giving you trouble. Drag the folder "iMovie Thumbnails" to your trash. Then open the folder "iMovie Cache" and drag the file "Cache.plist" to the trash. Restart iMovie. It should rebuild the thumbnails, and by regenerating the .plist file, it should have the data it needs to reed the new thumbnails into iMovie.
    It worked for me. Hopefully it will work for you too.

  • FCP 10.1.1 messed up my Events and Projects...

    I just updated FCP all the way from 10.0.7 to 10.1.1, but I ran into some major issue that's messing with my workflow. When I launched the new FCP 10.1.1, it asked me if I want to upgrade my Events and Projects folders into a single Library, I clicked Upgrade and it got that done. Then I was asked whether I want to preserve the old Events and Projects, fortunately, I chose to preserve it, and it moved the two folders into a new one now called 'Old Macintosh HD (something etc.). Later when I was trying to use the new version of FCP, something went horribly wrong, and it crashed. I tried relaunching FCP again, this time however, instead of loading the new Library it just created in my Movies folder, it created a new Library in the same folder named Untitled.
    So I tried dragging and dropping the older library that contained all my Events and Projects onto the FCP icon on they dock, and it immediately crashed. I then try deleting the 'Untitled' library in my Movies folder to see if FCP would recognise that older Library it created before. No luck it just created another Untitlted library and ignored my old library, tried dragging and dropping the old library, crashed again.
    Fortunately I chose to preserve the old folder, and even if I didn't I still have Time Machine to restore them. So now I'm going to try to re-import all my Events from the 'Original Media' folder inside of each individual Event, and redo all the copying and transcoding, etc. That is not a big deal, the big problem is, however, the Projects. I can't figure out how to put my Projects back in place now that the Library is closed off an inaccessible (to the best of my current knowledge). And even if I can get those Projects inside the Library, I still have to relink it back to the media which I am now importing in as new events and thus making it very difficult for FCP to see that they are actually suppose to be connected.
    It would be IMMENSELY helpful if anyone can help me with this I still have a pretty big project to finish and I need to finish it preferably in the next week or so since I won't have access to my iMac and editing on my 5+ year old MBP wouldn't be feasible as it doesn't have enough extra storage to hold my 40+GB of clips.

    First, take a look at these free videos about the FCP X new library model.
    From your description - moving folders around and renaming them - it's not clear what your situation is currently.
    I think it would be useful if you would post a screen shot of your Finder window that includes the first library that FCP created when you updated.
    You can navigate to that library in the application  by choosing File>Open Library>Other>Locate. When you do what happens?
    Russ

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